Paris (AFP)

The Paris Bourse rose sharply by 2.28% on Monday, wiping out all the losses suffered last week, as optimism prevailed about advances on potential treatments against Covid-19.

The CAC 40 index jumped 111.56 points to 5,007.89 points.

As the financial centers enter their last week of August, marked by a marked slowdown in trade due to the absence of many brokers and large-scale information, Monday's optimism can be explained by the hope for concrete progress in the fight against Covid-19.

US President Donald Trump gave the green light on Sunday to transfuse blood plasma from people recovered from the coronavirus to hospital patients - a treatment whose effectiveness is still debated, however.

The American drug agency (FDA) had anticipated Sunday by announcing this emergency authorization, which is within its purview.

According to the Financial Times, the US president is also planning to push for the FDA to proceed in the same way with the vaccine of the Swedish-British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca.

"The vaccine in question still has a long way to go, but buyers have jumped at the opportunity" to place bullish bets, judge David Madden, analyst at CMC Markets.

This situation also allowed Wall Street to move into positive territory in mid-session, with the Dow Jones taking 0.96%, the Nasdaq 0.54% and the S&P 500 0.74%.

Regarding the coronavirus pandemic which has killed more than 809,000 people according to an AFP count, "the Stock Exchange does not buy information but hopes, and it is once we have a specific date on a treatment that it will be the end of the increase linked to a vaccine or a treatment, ”says Valentin Bulle, equity manager at Dôm Finance.

This ambient optimism allowed the values ​​"the most cyclical" for the economy to benefit from it, indicates the specialist.

In France, the top trio of the CAC 40 is made up of Renault, which jumped 6.38% to 24.51 euros, Airbus (+ 4.37% to 72.10 euros), and Société Générale ( + 4.19% to 13.84 euros).

In addition to hopes for medical advances that would stem the hitherto inexorable spread of the coronavirus around the world, the markets took advantage of the US news to regain some of the ground lost last week, a week weighed down by several disappointing economic indicators worldwide.

The Paris index had slipped 1.34% over the week.

Accor fell 0.49% to 24.55 euros, the title having already increased significantly the previous week, against the backdrop of rumors of a merger with the British group Intercontinental Hotels Group.

© 2020 AFP